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Mar 10, 2009

Accepted

Today I'm feeling pretty rough, a bad cold has hit me and left me bed ridden. But my spirits were lifted a little when I got my acceptance letter from CalArts this morning. It's a good day, and a proud day. All the stuff I went through to get this letter has been worth it. I'll update this post later when I'm not feeling so rotten. I plan to outline what I did to prepare my portfolio, and everything that was involved with it, good and bad. But I just had to post today, to mark the occassion. What a day to get the good news. Sheesh!

Well...back to bed.

*UPDATE*

Okay so what did I have to do to get accepted? If you read this blog over the past year, it's all pretty much here. But here's a quick overview. Keep in mind I live in Vancouver, Canada.

Life drawing 4-5 days a week (minimum!) for 9 months. I went to Basic Inquiry for this.

I joined AnimatedBuzz Forums. This community's sole purpose is to help you get in. Last year about 15 members got in. When class sizes are 35-40, that's a pretty good average. This year's count is up to 8 so far, myself included.

I made friends with current students. They helped me with my portfolio, and now I'll already have friends going in.

It's not always easy getting out to that many life drawing classes a week. I also worked full time, and I re-arranged my work/social life around my life drawing classes.

How bad do you want it? I can now say that after all the bad models (John and Lorna from Basic), and the ones that didn't show up. After the parking tickets, and speeding tickets. After all the rainy days trying to get into class without ruining all my stuff. After being towed and having to drag all my art supplies across the city to the impound lot. After consequently being late to work that day. After the hundreds I spent on supplies and gas...IT WAS ALL WORTH IT!

5 Comments:

congrats on getting into the cal arts!!..its a big thing and its really great to see someody is really going after 2d animation and drawings!:)...some years ago i collected the brochures and prospectus of all the art colleges like sheridan,calarts,vfs etc but never really moved my a** :D.....all the best!!!

Thanks David. Having such professional reference letters was a huge confidence boost in my application, so I thank you again for yours. I'm pretty excited. But right now I'm going through the HOW THE HELL AM I GOING TO PAY FOR THIS phase. Lol :)

Hi Dan, as a Canadian who graduated from Calarts 1 year ago I know the difficulties you have to face as a foreign student. I'm fortunate enough to have my parents and grandparents and tons of scholarships to support me through four years. I highly recommend you talking to the Canadian Ministry of Education, there should be some sort of International Student Loan you can take out. The interest may be high, but I think getting the education at Calarts is worth it. I also recommend you to apply scholarships. I've applied so many and gotten so few, the competition is very high. Also, if you don't attend calarts this year, you can hold on the attendance for another year. That means you can attend the school after a year you've received the acceptance letter. Lastly, I would like to donate you a small amount of money. I just need to know for sure this is not a scam. If there's anyway you can show me the legitimacy of your situation. hope this helps. email me at ejuan@laika.com